Aqua Pearls

[Orrex]

We saw a commercial for these handy little devices today. They're intended to help control/stabilize the amount of water you give your plants, since they absorb the water and release it slowly as needed. Impressively, one bead can absorb something like 30X its weight in water, swelling to the size of a marble.

Sounds good in principle, right?

Well, as soon as we saw the ad, we both immediately identified this product as a guaranteed way to kill children. I mean, a Canadian toy company suffered huge losses when several children ingested magnets and suffered serious intestinal injuries (one of them died, sadly). And that was for toys that didn't really look anything like delicious candy and which probably took some effort to swallow. These Aqua Pearl things are more or less identical to Nerds or Pop-Rocks or whatever, so by the time the kid realizes that they're not candy, he's already swallowed enough of them to fill three flower vases!

So I just want to go on record here, on 16 March 2010, pointing out the dangerous stupidity of this product. That doesn't absolve parents of the need to watch out for their kids, of course, but companies should really have better sense when marketing their potentially stomach-bursting pseudo-confections!


Watch for it!

[Lyric]

1. I'm pretty sure that stomach acid would make them disintegrate

but of course, people should be very careful and keep them away from children. You just never know for sure.

[Orrex]

2. I would hope, but I guess it depends on the plastic

Certain plastics are largely untouched by hydrochloric acid, for instance.